reactions to airsoft

[Richie Boyle]

I do laugh at the people who know nothing about this sport. They ask me what I have been up to and the answer 'buying guns' is usually met with surprise. Then they ask what I shoot and the obvious answer is 'people' because I love the reaction. 'oh...erm...right....ok'! Fair is fair, they are shooting at me

 

[Happy]

I've heard everything from: "that's a bit sad isn't it?" all the way up to "oh, so it's like paintball?"

 

[Sitting Duck]

just get them to come along with ya....

saves you trying to explain it:

Airsoft uhm well I suppose it is like pretend soldiers...

"Oh you mean like re-inactments ???"

ergh not quite but some do that, this is more like uhm ergh COD you might say

"Oh you get perks and bonus stuff ???"

No - it is one shot or hit and you are dead and you call yourself out

"Out like in cricket or tennis ???"

Oh ffs - you should come one day it would be really good

"yeah do you think so - Im not so sure"

No really, coz then I can get to shoot you myself for being so fvcking thick !!!!

 

[jcheeseright]

I generally tend to go down the 'it's like paintball with more realistic guns' line. People understand that.

 

[LDM]

Probably the best approach, you can then tell by there reaction if it is worth explaining further / investing more time.

 

[Monty]

why don't you get a real gun

 

[TacMaster]

why don't you get a real gun

Best answer to that is "So I can run around in the woods shooting at my mates without worrying about going to prison on murder charges"

 

[deacon]

I had "really, playing soliders, you wouldn't get a real solider doing that" from someone working in the MoD. I then informed about the number of people in active service in the armed services that I have met through airsoft and they went a bit quite.

 

[Albiscuit]

I generally tend to go down the 'it's like paintball with more realistic guns' line. People understand that.

Yeah this...

They will either be really interested and ask more questions or shrug it off without having to explain yourself in too much detail.

 

[skarra333]

In my head, I normally say:

"Oh, I was just making polite small talk, I wasn't prepared for a follow up interrogation. And as I don't actually care what you think, and my coffee making is now successfully accomplished, I'm going to where you are not. "

In actuality, I respond: "A sport like paintballing, but cheaper."

 

[Mr Monkey Nuts]

Just don't tell anyone.

 

[ikarma70]

I personally don't care what others thinking about any shooting that I do, however I am lucky as a few of my workmates do various firms of shooting.

One of them wants to trying airsoft so I will help him if I can!

 

[bornleverpuller]

I think if I said I was buying guns people would find is strange, when I tell people what I actually do they seem interested

 

[Cheeky vimto]

My work mates repsonses are usually somethine like "Why don't you just join the army and go to Afghan".

I understand from the outside looking in we're a bunch of grown men running round with toy guns but it's not affecting their lives in anyway so stay the f*ck out of it.

 

[Lt Earholes]

My work mates repsonses are usually somethine like "Why don't you just join the army and go to Afghan".

I get that when I tell people at work about me starting airsoft.

My response is, well if I get shot in afghan I'm dead, if I get shot in airsoft I can respawn and shoot the person back.

 

[CaptainSwoop]

Like Paintball but more painful

 

[bornleverpuller]

Like Paintball but more painful

Don't think it hurts anywhere near as much

 

[TacMaster]

Don't think it hurts anywhere near as much

I'm not sure about that- in my experience I've always found airsoft more painful than paintball at a normal skirmish level. I'm sure 'speedball' or whatever it is hurts more than normal paintball, but there's an equal amount of pain no matter what type of skirmish, be it a milsim or a normal turn up day.

As well as this, BBs only have a few mm that hits you, meaning that over a joule of force is being transmitted to your skin in a very small area.

In general paintballs seem to fly at a much lower velocity, and the low force from a paintball is felt in a much larger area.

This means that the force from a paintball hitting your arm will be displaced over a larger area and the feeling will be less intense than a BB hitting you with much more force over a smaller surface area.

A good analogy for this would be the cork board pressure/surface area link. If you took a pin and a bolt and applied the same amount of force onto the corkboard through them, the pin would go in and the bolt wouldn't. This is because the head of the pin has a smaller surface area than the face of the bolt, so more pressure is applied over a smaller area meaning less force is displaced.

 

[Longshot]

I don't understand why so many airsofters can't just admit the truth and say: "I dress up with other grown men and play toy soldiers with toy guns."

 

[jcheeseright]

I'm not sure about that- in my experience I've always found airsoft more painful than paintball at a normal skirmish level. I'm sure 'speedball' or whatever it is hurts more than normal paintball, but there's an equal amount of pain no matter what type of skirmish, be it a milsim or a normal turn up day.

As well as this, BBs only have a few mm that hits you, meaning that over a joule of force is being transmitted to your skin in a very small area.

In general paintballs seem to fly at a much lower velocity, and the low force from a paintball is felt in a much larger area.

This means that the force from a paintball hitting your arm will be displaced over a larger area and the feeling will be less intense than a BB hitting you with much more force over a smaller surface area.

A good analogy for this would be the cork board pressure/surface area link. If you took a pin and a bolt and applied the same amount of force onto the corkboard through them, the pin would go in and the bolt wouldn't. This is because the head of the pin has a smaller surface area than the face of the bolt, so more pressure is applied over a smaller area meaning less force is displaced.

Paintball tournament markers are restricted to 300fps... that's not much lower than airsoft. A standard paintball is somewhere in the region of 3g, about 12 times heavier than a standard .25g airsoft BB, and 15 times heavier than a .20.

A BB doesn't carry anywhere near the same amount of force as a paintball, the only reason paintballs don't do serious damage is that they're designed to burst on impact and spread their energy, anyone who's played paintball for a while will tell you the ones that hurt the most are the ones that don't burst, and they DO HURT, a lot.

I'd say they're different kinds of pain, I've been left with deep, large bruises from paintball which have taken a couple of weeks to heal but didn't really hurt *that* much at the time, whereas with airsoft I've never had a welt/bruise that's taken more than a few days to disappear.